Table Talk: Food Family Love Book

What ower of a popular cafe tells you to stay at home and eat? And why does she start her book with the words, "We need to bring back the family meal."? Carol McManus, proprietor of Espresso Love, a well-known cafe on the Island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, raised five children and put a meals on the table each day, while still working full time. She has written a cookbook that stresses family meals and included 80 recipes that help you put your family back to the table. Citing scientific studies that show family meals impacting on everything from children's school grades (they get better) to premature sex (they wait longer), she recalls her own beliefs: "When my children were small and started to bicker, I'd gather them in a huddle and ask, 'Where's the love? We're family.' And one place we could always count on getting together, every night was the dinner table." This is family-friendly food, designed to help recapture life the way it was meant to be lived. The ingredients are from items grown close to home, and the recipes are easy enough for every day preparation -- many simple enough to reassure even the most inexperienced cook. The cookbook is divided into six useful sections: the Dinner Table, the Breakfast Table, the Healthy Table, The Weekend Table, the Dessert Table and the World's Table, designed to satisfy our more global palates. The recipes range from the simple to the sublime. Many of them feature food Carol's mother, to whom she dedicates the book, cooked, such as a home-made veggie burger called "The Mama." Others are food served in her garden cafe off Main Street in Edgartown, on Martha's Vineyard. Accompanying the recipes are charming photographs, quotes and stories. Here you'll find the recipe for Presidential Muffins, created for former President Bill Clinton when he vacationed on the Vineyard during his presidency. Carol offers up the story of when the president came into her then-tiny shop in the corner of one of the Island's hotels to buy his muffin, dazzling both her and the Secret Service. The book's bright, attractive design also makes use of quotes from people as diverse as comedian Buddy Hackett and movie star Sophia Loren (who notes, under a picture of spaghetti and meatballs, "Everything you see I owe to spaghetti.") Accompanying the cookbook are tips and suggestions for getting meals to the table, including ways to engage children in cooking without letting them slow down the process. This is a must-have cookbook for every household with children -- or just people who like to eat.Read More